1. Field of Art
The present invention generally relates to rendering and displaying immersive images, more specifically to rendering immersive views at a centralized server and transmitting the immersive images to one or more viewer devices over a network for display.
2. Background of the Invention
An immersive image or immersive video is also referred to as panoramic images or panoramic video. The immersive image or video is generated by seaming two or more single view images or video frames captured by two or more cameras positioned to cover different fields of view. The cameras are often equipped with wide field of view (FOV) fisheye distortion lenses. The single view images or video frames are de-warped and seamed into a single immersive image or video frame. At least a part of the projection image or video frame is rendered and displayed for viewing.
The process of seaming and de-warping the image requires a large amount of computational and memory resources. Although many computing devices are coming equipped with sufficient processing power and memory to perform immersive imaging process, their resources may be restricted for one or more reasons. Hence, the process of rendering an immersive image or video frame on such computing devices may take a large amount of time. Further, a large memory space may be needed in the computing devices to store high resolution single view images.
In some immersive imaging systems, a user may choose to view a selected portion of the immersive image or video frame in a viewport. The viewport is an area on a screen that displays a portion of the immersive image or video frame. The user may operate a computing device to view the immersive image or video frame from different pan angle, tilt angle, and zoom level in the viewport. Based on user input, an immersive imaging system may render a viewport image to display different parts or aspects of the immersive image in its viewport. The process of generating viewport images may also require a large amount of computational and memory resources, especially for cases involving immersive images of large size.
In certain applications, an immersive imaging system may generate immersive images or frames from single view images received over a network. If the bandwidth of the network is constrained, the process of displaying immersive views or frames may be delayed due to the time spent on receiving the single view images over the network.